I recently read The Law of Peoples by Rawls. I should have read it many years ago but I was busy. In an aside in the book, Rawls mentions the idea from Kant perpetual peace and democracies, that is, democracies do not go to war against one another and engage only in defensive wars. I recall the notion from Jeanne Kirkpatrick speeches while she was in the Reagan Administration (Ambassador to the UN I think). I later learned it is a theme from Kant, so one would expect it in Rawls as well. But I find it hard to parse. What does democracy mean in this context, and what does war mean, and also what is a defensive war? On an ordinary understanding of democracy, it does seem that democracies wage war against one another from time to time. The US Civil War was between democratic states, democracy just means more or less open elections to a big part of the populace. Maybe we exclude that because the polis was too small? Then what portion has to be able to vote for the term to apply? And skip forward in time. Is war confined to large scale military operations? How to keep out of the ledger the attacks by the US on democracies in Central and South America? The coup in Iran? Not wars because not enough soldiers involved? Is that elections or referenda on war are needed? What about colonies? How does the retention of colonial lands and peoples fit in? There are lots of questions, and they are not hard to develop. I understand European nations have not gone to war against one another recently (I suppose the destruction of Yugoslavia can be put to one side because it was not a democracy, but then some of the new states look enough like a democracy to count and they had no trouble warring against one another).
As an empirical claim, it looks in poor health. But assume it for the moment. What is it supposed to show? Democratic peoples are peace-loving? That people do not vote to go to war? That sort of talk would be digging a grave. Pro-war candidates win elections.
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